Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Quartzite
An extremely hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone, made of fused quartz grains that break across rather than between the grains.
metamorphic
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstone
Quartzite Sandstone
A tough, quartz-rich sandstone cemented by silica, transitional toward true quartzite but still sedimentary in origin.
sedimentary
Rose Tourmaline
A soft to medium pink elbaite tourmaline in rose hues, colored by manganese and prized for romantic jewelry.
gemstone
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Pink Agate
A soft pink banded chalcedony, occurring naturally in delicate hues and also commonly produced by dyeing.
gemstone
Pink Emerald
A trade name sometimes used for pink beryl (morganite), the manganese-colored rose-to-peach variety of the emerald mineral.
gemstonePink Obsidian
A pink to rose volcanic glass; some is natural iron-tinted obsidian while much sold commercially is color-treated glass.
igneousPink Lady Obsidian
Obsidian showing a pink-to-rose sheen or hue; natural examples get color from interference effects, while uniform pink material is often manufactured glass.
igneousRegency Rose Agate
A prized plume agate with rose-pink and red feathery inclusions suspended in clear chalcedony, from the western U.S.
gemstone
Pink Beryl
The pink to peach variety of beryl, better known as morganite, colored by manganese and prized for its gentle pastel hues.
gemstone
Pink Tourmaline
A pink to red gem variety of elbaite tourmaline, colored by manganese, ranging from soft pastel pink to vivid rubellite red.
gemstone
Pink Garnet
A trade name for pink garnets, mainly rhodolite, a rose-to-purplish pyrope-almandine blend prized for its bright clean color.
gemstonePink Opal
A soft pink common opal, most famously from Peru, valued for its gentle pastel color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystal
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Rutilated Quartz
Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.
crystal
Dalmatian Stone
A cream-colored feldspar-and-quartz rock peppered with dark spots, named for its resemblance to a Dalmatian dog.
igneousLemurian Seed Quartz
Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.
crystalStone Canyon Jasper
A warm-toned brecciated jasper from central California known for swirling browns, golds, and creams broken by darker seams.
gemstone